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Student Loans Are A Drag On The Economy

business.time.com

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Re: Student Loans Are A Drag On The Economy

#31

Post by kiiski »

Glyptodon wrote: post #18

Meh. This is (mostly) the students' and the families' who abet their stupid decisions fault. If you go to an in-state community college and then matriculate to an in-state university in my state the total cost of college is (~$4500 for 2 years of CC living at home + ~$25000 for 2 years of closest to home in-state school) ~$30000 + the cost of living at home. Meanwhile people continue to whine about sending their kids…

Are you arguing that it would be a good thing to limit the best education to the richest elite? Coming from a free education country this sounds like a very strange idea...

Re: Student Loans Are A Drag On The Economy

#33

Post by jjoonathan »

SixSigma wrote: post #6
ck2 wrote: post #3

It blows my mind that it costs $400k to become a quality dentist in the USA these days. No wonder I see people train overseas and then just get a license here. How is health care ever going to be affordable in this country if the doctors and dentists have to carry so much debt?

It boggles the mind. By the time I graduate I will owe about 1 year's projected income (about $70k) and I think that's a pretty good return. If a dentist can make back nearly half a million then something needs to be done about the cost of dentristry, something doesn't add up.

I don't know how it works for dentists, but my understanding is that for doctors we've essentially given the doctors' guild the ability to legally dictate how many medical graduates they will allow, making them the envy of unions around the world (and schools, who are very happy with an arrangement that allows them to auction off a restricted supply of meal tickets). Sometimes you'll hear the AMA blame congress because they've gotten congress to pay for part of the education process and it hesitates to periodically increase the handout, but the reality is that they could change things tomorrow if they wanted to. Which they don't, because they rather enjoy the sky-high salaries that come from the artificial scarcity they've created.

The market is slowly working around this constraint by allowing nurses to train and take on some of the responsibilities that were previously subject to the artificial labor scarcity.

Unfortunately this only represents about ~1/3 of the problem with our medical industry by market share. The other two thirds come from drug price overruns (US drug buyers pay twice as much as single-payer countries which have much more size = bargaining power) and the medical insurance industry (a textbook case of "costs of competition" dramatically exceeding the benefits in a measurable way).

Re: Student Loans Are A Drag On The Economy

#34

Post by snowwindwaves »

My father was an economics prof at a Canadian university. In canada a large part of the tuition cost is the actual professors. What the student pays doesn't even cover the professor salaries, the rest is made up by the government.

Consider that a tenured prof makes about 120k and teaches only 2 courses per semester, 2 semesters per year, while an undergraduate might have 6 courses per semester and pay 6-10k. My faculty had 2400 undergraduate students and while some classes in first year had 100 students, most were 20-30 students per class.

Re: Student Loans Are A Drag On The Economy

#35

Post by FLUX-YOU »

ck2 wrote: post #24
sjg007 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Americans could do the same, go abroad, get a degree and come back.

So basically outsource college. We're not going to have anything left. Heck why even send people for education, why not go overseas for dental work (I bet it already happens).

Ivy and tech will probably remain. Frankly, some Americans could do with experiencing other cultures (myself included).

Re: Student Loans Are A Drag On The Economy

#36

Post by qwerta »

transfire wrote: post #2

The issue is even worse than this article suggests. The article focuses on graduates. But students who fail to graduate, for whatever reason, are even worse off. They usually can't payoff their debt, so they go into default and have their credit destroyed for the rest of their lives. They can't try to go back to school later because they can't get new loans, and, with the latest laws, can't even transfer the credits…

I think one can not go into personal bankruptcy for student loans...

Re: Student Loans Are A Drag On The Economy

#37

Post by falsestprophet »

yashg wrote: post #13
ck2 wrote: post #3

It blows my mind that it costs $400k to become a quality dentist in the USA these days. No wonder I see people train overseas and then just get a license here. How is health care ever going to be affordable in this country if the doctors and dentists have to carry so much debt?

Exactly my thought when I read that. $400,000 for dentist? Heck some people don't even give them as much respect as they give to other kind of doctors. Some say they aren't even doctors. No wonder people go to India or Eastern Europe to get their teeth replaced.

They are literally not medical doctors.

Re: Student Loans Are A Drag On The Economy

#38

Post by Glyptodon »

enraged_camel wrote: post #25
Glyptodon wrote: post #18

Meh. This is (mostly) the students' and the families' who abet their stupid decisions fault. If you go to an in-state community college and then matriculate to an in-state university in my state the total cost of college is (~$4500 for 2 years of CC living at home + ~$25000 for 2 years of closest to home in-state school) ~$30000 + the cost of living at home. Meanwhile people continue to whine about sending their kids…

Wow. I like you blamed this entire mess on students and parents. >>The real issue is that people feel entitled to the best schools and will so make absurd decisions to enable it Nonsense. People want to send their kids to the best schools because the best schools are the gatekeepers to the upper class. Someone who graduates from an Ivy League school gets to build a network with affluent alumni and has a high chance o…

You exaggerate. Mostly it's people who don't do well at their colleges that have trouble. At Ivy Leagues it's fewer people because they have the worst grade inflation and don't accept many borderline students.

For state schools there are lots of people at the margin - IE they don't do well enough to really reap a benefit from their degree.

Maybe getting good grades at a public won't get you 6 figures in your first job, but in most fields you aren't going to get that from an Ivy League, either.

But if you do well or choose a good major your in state school will be fine - you'll get a job, and it'll pay alright.

This is 3 or 4 times as true if you're planning on being something like a Nurse or a Teacher and less true if you're planning on being a hedge fund manager, but frankly if I were a student I'd be happy for the future hedge fund managers of the world to go somewhere else.

Re: Student Loans Are A Drag On The Economy

#39

Post by crucifiction »

higherpurpose wrote: post #7

So stop letting the government guarantee the loans. Watch how the prices fall once only a small fraction can afford to take a $200,000 loan to pay for their college, afterwards. US colleges have been spoiled. That's why prices are so high.

More likely, you will just see the proportion of foreign students increase dramatically. College these days is already mostly made up of semi-rich kids from America and actually-rich kids from China. With loans at least some middle class American kids get a shot.

Re: Student Loans Are A Drag On The Economy

#40

Post by Glyptodon »

kiiski wrote: post #31
Glyptodon wrote: post #18

Meh. This is (mostly) the students' and the families' who abet their stupid decisions fault. If you go to an in-state community college and then matriculate to an in-state university in my state the total cost of college is (~$4500 for 2 years of CC living at home + ~$25000 for 2 years of closest to home in-state school) ~$30000 + the cost of living at home. Meanwhile people continue to whine about sending their kids…

Are you arguing that it would be a good thing to limit the best education to the richest elite? Coming from a free education country this sounds like a very strange idea...

No. I think private schools are destructive to the fabric of democracy. I also think the 'best education' line is a fallacy propagated to serve the interests of the rich elite and resolve their cognitive dissonance.
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